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15 Phishing Scams to Watch Out For

by Joshua Fruhlinger on March 5, 2009 at 02:01 PM



Nigerian letter scam

The "419 letter," named for the Nigerian penal code that addresses crime schemes, shows up as an e-mail from someone looking for your help in a seemingly desperate yet worthy cause, usually someone looking to give money away in his or her final days. The scam: In exchange for your personal information, like bank accounts and routing numbers, the sender promises a large lump sum for your help. You never get the money, of course, and the e-mail sender impersonates you from across the world, creating an alternate version of you with credit cards and bank accounts until your credit goes so bad that you will spend years trying to fix it. Often, you will even get official-looking documents to get you to pony up for shipping and documentation fees, making the whole thing look legitimate. So, don't respond to any of these e-mails, which seem to crop up in new forms every week.

For more information, 419eater.com has a great FAQ that documents some of the cases, and notes some citizens fighting back against the scammers. Warning: some of these accounts are for mature audiences only.


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